The House of Egremont

by Molly Elliot Seawell

Yet they bore their hard fortune bravely and meekly, as became gentlemen. They had some alleviations; there was the hay-making in the harvest time, when all the fine ladies and gentlemen, whose hay in England other folks were making, turned in and made the King’s hay for him. Roger Egremont had two great consolations,—the friendship of Berwick, and the possession of the horse which poor James Stuart had scraped up the money to give him. The horse was a beast of considerable merit, and named Merrylegs, after his worthy predecessor; for Roger Egremont had in him a deep vein of sentiment, and just as he every night put under his pillow his little bag of earth from Egremont, so he swore he would ever have a horse named Merrylegs, in honor of the faithful creature given him by Diccon the ploughman.

The friendship of Berwick he reckoned to be the greatest good fortune of his life. There was a sort of manly perfection in Berwick; he was, in every bone and fibre, a man and a gentleman, just, merciful, nobly forgetful of injuries, and showing forth even then that great and robust genius which afterward ranked him as great in war as his uncle John, Duke of Marlborough, and infinitely greater in all that makes a man. Well might Berwick be called “the great, tall devil of an Englishman who must have everything his own way,” as Madame de Beaumanoir had said. Berwick’s way was commonly superior to anybody else’s way. He was not only the right hand of the King, but of the gentle, courageous, and sad-faced Queen. And nothing was prettier than the sight of Berwick with his little half-brother, the Prince of Wales,—the tall, grave elder brother walking in the gardens and on the terrace with the little Prince’s hand in his, listening seriously to the child’s chatter, carrying him when tired and sleepy, and always his favorite playfellow. Roger could find but one fault in Berwick,—that strange insensibility to the stain upon his birth, which was the more singular in a man of the nicest and most delicate honor; an insensibility which Monsieur le duc de St. Simon remarks upon in those pungent memoirs which it was known he was engaged in writing; and which was always a subject of amazed comment. Roger hated bastards so that he never quite understood or forgave Berwick this idiosyncrasy; but, apart from that, he loved Berwick with a manly and noble love.

Among the few letters to England which Roger wrote in his own proper person, was a long and grateful one to Bess Lukens, describing all his adventures after being taken from Newgate, and all which had befallen him at St. Germains, except the most important of all,—that he had fallen deeply and madly in love with a lady as far above him as he was above poor Bess. He had not once seen Michelle since that night at Madame de Beaumanoir’s, and, not daring to ask what had become of her, was at last enlightened on that point by Madame de Beaumanoir.

“Gone to the convent of the Scotch Benedictines in Paris—and for what, in the name of God, think you? To study the German language! She could have had a master here, but she says she cannot be as studious here as she would wish, and she likes the quiet and retirement of the convent, where she lives as sedately as any nun. And she a beautiful young woman! I warrant I spent not my youth that way. She is greedy of knowledge, and, hoping and longing as she does to play a great part, she wants to know all about everything.”

“And when does Mademoiselle d’Orantia return to St. Germains?” Roger Egremont ventured to ask, adding a gruesome joke,—“I hope before we all depart for England.”

“Surely. You need not be packing your portmanteau yet awhile, Mr. Egremont. Well, my niece will come back in time for the hay-making in August, for that is one of the few amusements my lady condescends to,—that, and taking long rides a-horseback with nobody but François for an escort.”

After this, Roger watched the hay-fields with a learned and critical eye, knowing, as he did, all the lore of growing crops. And on a fair day in August it was given forth that on the next day all the ladies and gentlemen would assemble at noon to make the King’s hay for him.

Be sure that Roger Egremont was in the meadow long before the procession of hay-makers started from the old palace, and walked the length of the terrace to the low-lying fields. It was a glorious midsummer day, and never were the prospects of King James better in the way of haying. The hay-makers, bearing the proudest names of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, were dressed as peasants, but their costumes were made of silken stuffs such as no peasant ever wore. The dress of the exiles, both ladies and gentlemen, was a little shabby; their old brocades and laces brought from England were showing signs of wear and tear. They all carried gilded hay-forks, and rakes tied with ribbons, except Berwick, who did nothing by halves, and was worth two ordinary day laborers in haying time; he carried an iron hay-fork and rake, borrowed from a gardener.

Roger Egremont, loitering amid the cherry trees in Madame Michot’s orchard, came out and joined the merry crew when it reached the meadow. He was dressed as a peasant, in true peasant’s clothes, borrowed from Jacques Michot, but clean and well fitting, as became the work of Madame Michot’s fingers. The shirt, open at the neck, showed the white column of his throat, as fair as a duchess’s, next the manly tan and sunburn of his face. His hat, also borrowed from Jacques, was trimmed with the field poppies and the blue cornflower. His eyes sought but one figure, and there she was, walking daintily along, near the end of the procession,—Michelle, Princess d’Orantia. She was dressed as a true peasant maiden, in a gown of white linen, and her hat was bound with a wreath of wild roses.

Then, to the singing of harvest songs, they fell to work. The hay had been cut early in the morning; it was their business to rake and stack it.